


Embers

by Anonymous



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Existential Angst, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 16:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16245686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: In the end, there's only so much kindle in the world.





	Embers

**Author's Note:**

> 2015 called and said it wanted its maxwil back. I told 2015 to heck off.

It was fun, once, to approach him in perfect silence during long winter evenings, after he had huddled by the campfire and braced himself for the encroaching darkness and the slow deterioration of his sanity.

He always struggles at first, clawing at the shadowy fingers depriving him from his vision and forcing him prone to the ground. He pleads, too, first urgently, then hesitantly, as though conducting an experiment to see which works better, and then falls silent but for the hitching of his breath after he learns any kind of resistance will only prolong his suffering.

Perhaps it is only your imagination, but he seems to learn faster these days.

He's still now, sprawled before you, his exposed flesh rising to goosebumps despite the roaring flames a mere foot away. You can count his ribs as his chest slowly rises and falls and he tosses his head to the side, a futile effort to remove the hands keeping him from witnessing his assailant. He's weak and malnourished and seems meek and subdued, but you know it to be a ruse; he has survived through three seasons, his longest streak for a long time, and he's gathering his strength for a final, decisive counter-attack.

A counter-attack which never once has more than grazed you.

In the past, you liked to take your time, made sure to wring out every ounce of pleasure from the writhing, desperate body at your mercy. It used to bring you such joy to watch him fall to pieces, reduced once more to futile pleading and finally begging for death. You're not an unreasonable fellow. You always gave him what he asked for. Eventually.

Now, you force his legs open, barely noticing that your claws draw blood from his thighs, or the hiss of protest you elicit from your quarry. You have learnt to play him like an instrument, and by now this has become like practising scales: something you do not because you enjoy it, but because it is what you have always done, chasing after the semblance of satisfaction the act once brought you.

It is only after you've forced yourself inside him and waited for him to stop whimpering and tensing around you as though that didn't make the pain worse, vaguely recalling just how much you used to savour these moments, that you finally begin to enjoy yourself. It is the satisfaction you get from slowly, tortuously making him complicit in his own violation, watching him come undone till he lies on the frozen ground with his legs open wide, moaning like a whore and bucking into each thrust even as tears of shame pool around his covered eyes.

It doesn't make you happy. Nothing has since years became decades became centuries. But unlike everything else in your trapped existence, it gives you a sense of calm.

You keep at it longer than you usually bother these days, and when you release him, he falls bonelessly onto the ground, unseeing eyes staring blankly at the fire. Nothing would be easier than to wrap your fingers around his brittle neck and snap it.

Instead, you get up, adjust your clothes, and stoke the flames. They should last till dawn.

You haven't witnessed the aftermath before, or if you have, you no longer remember. The jolt of genuine, if fleeting pleasure you get from snuffing out his life tends to get in the way.

Well. Perhaps you can break him in a new way, now.

You slip away before Charlie creeps in, suffocating the land with her presence but for the solitary, dwindling fire.


End file.
